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We're getting close- just a little over two weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting! Let's take a trip around the division and rank the players each team will be deploying in center field in the upcoming season.
As a reminder, we're going through each position to rank the players in the NL Central. You can catch up on the previously covered positions below:
1. Oneil Cruz, Pirates
Cruz only played 23 games in center to end the 2024 season, but his jaw-dropping tools and emerging production (combined with a weak stable of center fielders in the Central) earn him the top spot here. The speedy Dominican enters his age 26 season with his first full season in the books- one that highlighted both Cruz's jaw-dropping talent and his massive weaknesses. He easily projects as a 30/30 guy, has the strongest arm potentially in the history of the MLB, is in the 100th percentile of exit velocity, and is amongst the fastest players in the league. On the flip side, Cruz was so bad with the glove that he forced the Pirates to move him out of the infield (a .939 fielding percentage) to center, where his speed and arm should hypothetically give him extreme upside. However, he looked pretty lost out there during his brief stretch there to wrap up the season.
Similar to most players his size (6'7"), Cruz also has significant swing-and-miss issues. He particularly struggles on pitches low in the zone, and his wildly high strikeout rate offsets a surprisingly high walk. This is a huge year for Cruz- if he can be merely league average in center and improve his whiff rate, the Pirates could have a 5+ WAR player on their hands. It would also be great to see Cruz leverage his elite baserunning speed more often- he's extremely efficient (22-23) stealing bases and could probably pay to be even more aggressive. Even without further improvement, he is the best center fielder in the division headed into 2025.